


Eighteen

by SilverSprinklez10



Category: Derp Crew - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Derp Crew, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 13,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSprinklez10/pseuds/SilverSprinklez10
Summary: For most kids in America, the number eighteen is a symbol of freedom.  It symbolizes adulthood, and a world of opportunity opens up for these young adults at eighteen years old.  High school is wrapping up and plans for the future are set in place.  Being eighteen years old is exciting to every teenager.  Except for John.  As John grows up and lives his life, he waits to be eighteen years old, but not for the reason his peers are anticipating becoming that age.  A TehChaos story.Originally posted on Wattpad.
Relationships: Anthony | ChilledChaos/John Aprigliano, John Aprigliano & Anthony | ChilledChaos
Kudos: 1





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am, doing more Wattpad transfers to this website. Except this isn't a one shot. This is a multi-part story that I wrote first, then published piece by piece. I'm not moving everything I've written in Wattpad to here. But I am moving this one. So here it is.
> 
> Before you start reading, this story is rated Mature for a reason. It gets dark. It deals with dark themes. If you're looking for bright fluff with happily ever after, why did you click on the book with the angst tag?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be updating character tags and relationship tags as more parts get posted.

When John was born, his mother looked down on him, ready to be a mother to yet another child. She knew that she had committed herself to a great responsibility, but she didn't know how much of a responsibility she was taking on. This was a new stage for her, and she did not know exactly what to expect from her child. This was her third child, which meant that the children would outnumber the amount of parents, which terrified her. She watched as the doctors cut the umbilical cord connecting her to her baby, her precious son. He started crying, as most babies seem to do when the cord is cut. The doctor assured her that her baby would stop crying soon, like what had happened with her other two children. 

But an hour later, unlike the other two children she had given birth to, the newly named John was still crying. The doctors were panicking at this point, trying to hide their fear from the anxious mother who had watched her child suffer for so long. There were no abnormalities with John's condition that they could detect, so the doctors were afraid for John's health and safety. Then, the mother’s phone started ringing. The new mom saw that her husband was calling and answered the phone. John's expected due date was a week later than the day he was born, so his dad was still visiting family when his mother’s water broke.

When the mother answered her phone, John immediately stopped crying. The doctors were highly confused by this behavior, but were relieved at the same time. Maybe John had finally reached exhaustion, but he was not falling asleep. The doctors did not pay attention to the conversation on the phone, but when John’s mother ended the call, she was distressed. She told the doctors what had happened; her mother in law had gotten into a car crash and was killed on impact an hour ago, at around the same time John's umbilical cord was cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of Chapter 1. Welcome to the story. It only goes downhill from here.


	2. The First Tragedy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: Suicide  
> If that will trigger you, please do not read.

When John was about three months old, on a Thursday evening, he would not stop crying. After trying everything that could stop a baby from crying, his mother tried to get his older brother to calm him down. But when put into his arms, John started wailing in despair. His brother quickly put him down and John stopped wailing, but continued to cry. His mother, bewildered, then employed his sister, the middle child, to try and comfort John. When John was placed into his sister's arms, he calmed down. John ended up sleeping with his sister that night, because he would not stop crying unless in her embrace.

The next morning started off as normal. John's brother left the house at the normal time to go to school, as did his sister. His parents left for work once the nanny they hired for John arrived. What John's parents did not know, that his siblings did know, is that this nanny often took naps, which was good if you were a three year old doing something sneaky, but bad if you were a three month old needing attention, although the sound of John crying always woke the nanny up from her naps, which was the main reason why she hadn't been fired yet. The fact that the nanny was easily woken up contributed to John's parents' trust in this nanny, although this trust vanished after what would happen on this day.

After his parents left and the nanny was fast asleep, John's brother snuck back into the house. He did not go to school that day, like his parents and sister had thought he did. Instead, he did something that would change his family's life forever. He snuck into his room, with such a silence that neither John or the nanny could have heard him. He was sure to be cautious; although John did not have the capability to stop him, he could make John cry and attract the attention of the nanny. He went through with his plan and was very successful with what he did.

As soon as his brother did what he planned on doing, John cried out in despair. The nanny awoke from her sleep to check on him, and tried her best to calm him down. He wasn't hungry, his diaper was clean, she tried everything. Then she noticed that John's hand was pointing towards the door. Did he want out? Having tried everything else, she picked up John and left the room with John in her arms. After she closed the door behind her, she was surprised to find that John's hand pointed to the hallway. She followed the hallway, wondering what she was doing, until she reached the older brother's room and John touched the door. She was confused as to why John led somehow her to her brother's door, but she wasn't in the mood to question it. She opened the door and was shocked by the sight before her.

She found John's older brother hanging from a noose, with a chair lying underneath his hanging body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first couple chapters are kinda short, but some of the later ones will be longer. So there's that. Really dunno what else to say.


	3. Aphex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: school shooting, death of child

When John was in kindergarten, he was playing with the other kids in his class. It wasn't because he enjoyed it; his teacher expected him to get along with the other children, so that was what he did. While in the middle of playtime, a kid in the class named Steven asked the teacher if he could use the restroom. The teacher made Steven take the bathroom pass with him and sent him on his way. John watched this happen, then paused his playing and went up to his teacher.

“Hey John,” his teacher told him. “If you want to use the bathroom, you have to wait until Steven comes back.”

“Steven is dead,” John said, looking the teacher directly in the eyes.

The teacher was startled by this comment. She knew what had happened to John’s brother, but she hadn't expected John to say something that straightforward about death, and she certainly did not expect John to say something about another student who had nothing to do with his brother. She thought John was still taking in the loss he had experienced and was coping in an unusual way. Death was a heavy thing for a six year old to process. John was just grieving and trying to wrap his mind around everything. It puzzled John's teacher that John hadn't mentioned death to anyone in her class before, but she had to deal with what was happening now and not the past.

“John, Steven just went to the bathroom,” the teacher told him. “He’ll be back.”

“No,” John insisted. “He is dead.”

With that, John walked away and returned to playing with the other kids. Two minutes later, the siren for a lockdown of the campus went off. If the kids knew how to read the emotions of their teacher, they would have known that this was not a drill. There was a real danger on campus and the teacher did her best to keep her children quiet so they would be safe. The students never found out until after they were safe that a school shooter had just been arrested on their campus. He had injured seven people and killed one person. After that, school ended for the day, and John was in his mother's embrace. His parents were relieved at the fact that they had not lost a second child. Everything was as okay as it could be after such a horrible event, with the shooter caught and arrested, except one fact that changed his teacher's point of view on John.

The one person who died was Steven from John’s class, the one who left the classroom three minutes before the lockdown was announced.


	4. The Prediction

When John was in the third grade, he hated doing math with a passion. It was his least favorite subject of all time. Math constantly reminded him of the daunting number eighteen, which every time he heard it, he remembered his connection to that number. The association of death that came with that number made John terrified. Death was a terrible thing for a young kid to cope with, even John, whose experiences with death were many, although none of his experiences had threatened his own life.

The teacher noticed that John often refused to do his math assignments, so while all of the other kids went of to recess that day, she requested that John stay behind so that she could talk to him. John obliged to his teacher's request and waited until the other children exited the room. John did not particularly mind not being able to play with the other children for a while; he still did not see the point of playing with the other children after a couple more years of schooling. The other kids did not understand him and he could not understand their unrelenting joy every day.

“John, I know you are smart,” his teacher told him. “But I would really appreciate it if you put some more effort into math. You're falling far behind, and it’s going to be hard for you to catch up if you continue the way that you are.”

“I don’t want to,” John said stubbornly. “There's no point.”

“John, you have to know math,” his teacher said. It wasn't the first time she had stubborn students, and she was confident John just needed some coaching and motivation. “It will help you in the future. Don’t you have dreams for when you grow up?”

“It doesn't matter,” John said solemnly. “I’m going to die at the age of eighteen anyway. There’s no point.”

His teacher was absolutely shocked at the answer. Unlike his kindergarten teacher, his third grade teacher was unaware of John’s older brother's suicide, so his third grade teacher could not even reach a false conclusion about the situation. She realized at this point that trying to reason with John would be useless. This problem was deeper than she realized. Never before had she had a student who refused to do schoolwork because they were insistent that they would not live long enough for it to matter. Usually third graders did not make up these types of excuses.

“Just… go to recess,” his teacher said. “I’ll be talking to your mother about your refusal to do math.”

John spent his recess doing what he normally did these days; he pulled out a book from his backpack and read it in the shade. He didn't mind being lonely, mostly because none of the other third graders understood him. The rest of the school day went by like normal. John paid attention to his classes and then went home on the bus. When John came home from school that day, he could hear the crying of his mother from her room. Although it pained John to know he had hurt her with what he said, he knew the end was inevitable. He knew, deep within his heart, that he would not live over the age of eighteen.


	5. The Psychiatrist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: Mentions of suicide

John’s mother had had enough of John’s behavior about death. She signed him up to see a child friendly psychiatrist so that he could help identify what was wrong. She had no idea if this was because of his brother’s suicide or not, but she wanted to find out so that she could help John. The first two therapy sessions were typical therapy sessions. The first one was introductions and establishing the problem, and the second was his mother talking to the psychiatrist about her point of view on the matter.

From the first two sessions, John had concluded that the psychiatrist was friendly and would be someone who would attempt to understand him, unlike his classmates. And so in the third therapy session, John talked to his psychiatrist about his older brother. At first, it was just the facts of what happened. His nanny had found his brother hanging from a noose when he was three months old. There was nothing noteworthy to the psychiatrist until he asked a specific question.

“Do you happen to remember anything about your brother?”

“Yeah,” John said. “I remember my brother.”

John talked about what his brother looked like and how he was. At first, he only talked about the things his mother had told him, and what she had told the therapist last session. His mother wanted to interrupt her child, but the psychiatrist did not, so she figured it was okay for her child to talk. She reasoned he was analyzing how her child talked instead of the details themselves. The psychiatrist did not hear anything unusual until John talked about his memories.

“I remember feeling cold the night before my brother died,” John said. “I felt like something bad was going to happen, and I was crying because of the way that I felt. And then my brother held me. I don’t know why, but I could feel a squeeze around my neck, and it felt bad. I screamed at that point, trying to stop that feeling. The feeling went away when I was put down, but I still cried.”

John’s mother could barely comprehend what she had been told. “You remember him picking you up?” she asked. “You were three months old!”

There was more to the story she was questioning than just that. The feeling of being cold and the feeling of being choked struck a chord within his mother. John's older brother had died by hanging himself, and John had supposedly felt like he was being choked when he was picked up? It felt so unnatural to hear, so wrong, that there was a connection like that, almost as if her child had the power to predict the future. Of course, she had no way of knowing that this idea was actually the truth.

“You say you can remember something that happened to you when you were three months old?” the psychiatrist asks. Not very many patients he has dealt with have had such as keen memory as John had. He knew that there was a rare type of mental disorder where a patient remembers every part of their lives, but he had never met a patient with that condition before or studied up on it, so he was at a loss on what exactly to say to John.

“Yes,” John says. “I do. I also remember seeing my older brother that morning. I started crying after I felt sad for no reason. My nanny came in to see what I was wrong. I felt something in my heart, and I led her to my brother's room where he was hanging from a rope.”

His mother recalled how the nanny had explained to her that she followed where John was pointing in order to find the body. The two witness accounts matched perfectly. But how did John remember this? This was the question that was on both John’s mother’s mind and the psychiatrist’s mind. Before this, John’s mother never realized that John actually remembered seeing his brother hanging in his room dead. She had assumed that John was too young to remember that horrible day, but John had proved her wrong. No one had previously mentioned to John that he had led the nanny to his brother's corpse, yet he recalled the memory perfectly. 

There were no more significant questions for the psychiatrist to ask. He needed to study the information given to him before he could come up with a conclusion. So he send the mother and son home, telling them to come back next week to talk again. Both sides would think about what was said and more progress would be made next week. John and his mother went back to the car in silence, his mother because she was shocked by what John has said in the session and John because he saw no reason to talk. He had already said enough in his opinion. They got into the car, and John’s mother thought about her youngest child and the four events of death in his life while John continued to read his book as if what he said was not significant.


	6. Consequences

As it became more clear that John indeed had the power to see the future, his parents kept his distance away from him. They began to see him as a freak instead of their precious child, which made John depressed all of the time. He couldn't control whatever it was that told him about the future, this feeling he would get. The feeling of wanting to impress his parents led him to finally accept doing math, which pleased his teachers tremendously. He often spent the time he used to spend with his parents on school work, studying the material that he had not bothered to learn earlier, which was easy to memorize with his unusual memory. It was easier for John to busy himself with school work all the time than hang out with other people, since John didn't understand his classmates and his classmates didn't understand him.

The one consolation John had was his sister. John remembered the serene feeling he felt when his sister held him in his arms the night before his brother died, like he knew everything was going to be okay. That was how he felt now, knowing that his sister supported him and loved him no matter how terrifying his powers were. His sister had already lost her older brother, and she did not want to lose another sibling, although she understood that John could not stay by her side forever. The two siblings formed an inseparable bond, which would teach John the social skills he had lacked growing up with the other students in his grade.

Both John and his mother continued to see his psychiatrist, but his mother did most of the talking, and it was mostly centered around John’s older brother. There were a couple of sessions where she brought her husband instead of John and the three of them conversed about John’s older brother. The psychiatrist also asked more about John’s memories of the past, which John explained in full detail. John was a shroud of mystery to both the psychiatrist and his parents, so the psychiatrist found it easier to talk about problems he could solve and study what he could understand about John.

Reading and writing became John’s two favorite pastimes. John loved both literature and history. John read all different kinds of novels and historical texts. He then used the information he got from reading and some of the sensations he got from telling the future to write stories. At first, his writing were extremely basic, but it improved as time went on. He learned that using better word choice was more effective than using multitudes of adjectives and how to make sentences flow properly. If he was not predestined to die, he might have became a professional writer later in his life.

The one notable thing John’s parents noticed in him was his attitude towards high school. It was not the scary, far away place most kids thought it to be. It was a place where he would learn much about life. There was an exciting moment in his life waiting to happen. It was like Cinderella waiting for her prince to come, or Romeo waiting for his Juliet to dance with him at that one fateful party. It would be a wondrous time. Even in the bleakness of death, John could see a bright star, someone who would make him happy before his time came. It was the one happy prediction John saw in the future of his lonely life.


	7. Middle School

The way that John saw the future changed dramatically in middle school. It was not based off of a feeling anymore; John supposed this change was because of puberty and the changing of the brain during the teenage years. Instead, he saw the future through dreams. He saw what was going to happen instead of having a general idea of what was going to happen. This changed how he and his family viewed his powers. Now, both John and his parents believed that his powers were creepy and a curse. John hated seeing something that would go wrong and not being able to do anything about it and his parents freaked out whenever John made his looming predictions which would turn out to be true.

Throughout all of middle school, his only close friend was his sister. He became better at talking to people, but he never became close to anyone in any of his classes. He hated telling people about his older brother because he wanted people to see him as a person, not a helpless victim. But a lot of people at his school had found out about the incident and acted like he might break at any second, which frustrated him. He hated being the kid who people were nice to only out of pity. He wanted people to understand him, but he did not want to be treated like a mental patient, and it seemed like there was no in between.

He also learned to filter when he told others his futuristic predictions. He pretended to be surprised when his dad got a promotion at work and when his mother broke down from almost being fired, although he guided his mother to make sure she did not end up fired because he knew the consequences would be disastrous if she did. No more teachers were told about unfortunate happenings or outlooks. John also stopped seeing the psychiatrist, who insisted that he helped figure out what was going on and he couldn't help any further, although John's mother continued to see him to grieve over her lost son. The whole idea of someone having powers of telling the future seemed to freak the poor psychiatrist out, especially after John had advised him to visit his mother instead of going to a company party the day after one of John's sessions. The psychiatrist ended up going to the party and three days after the party, he received a phone call saying that his mother, who he hadn't seen in a month, had just passed away when he had planned on seeing her the day after she ended up dying.

Instead of telling people what the future held, John wrote his visions down in a notebook he always kept on his person. He refused to let anyone else look into it, including his own sister. His previous writings helped him to figure out how how to properly explain what had occurred in his visions, which was extremely useful when he wanted to look back on past visions. Keeping his ideas organized in one spot was easier than recalling dreams from memory; even though he remembered every single one, all the memories that John held in his head could be hard for him to manage. This method allowed him to organize his ideas in an order other than the order that he saw them in. As John’s middle school years went by, he collected prediction after prediction about what would happen to the world and formed a set timeline based off of it. Aspects of life became predictable to John, which often impressed teachers who did not know why this was. People he talked to found that following John's cryptic advice he would give out once in a while ended up benefiting them.

Eighth grade ended well enough. John ended up with straight A’s because of his love for learning and dedication to school. He reasoned that if he was going to spend his entire life in school, he might as well enjoy it and make the most out of his experience. There was not much else in store for John to accomplish unless he graduated high school before the age of eighteen, which would not happen. He would turn eighteen during his senior year of highschool, and would not survive to walk on his graduation night. John had decided to hide this new information concerning his prediction to his parents, who were set on believing John's death prediction was not true. But unfortunately for John's parents, this would not be the case.


	8. Anthony

John tried not to get attached to anyone in high school, ignoring the prediction he had made earlier about his so-called shining star. He knew he only had about four years left to live and he didn't want others to become attached to someone destined for an early death. But unfortunately for this noble goal, the ability to see the future did not give John immunity to human emotions. Even with the ability to see the future, John could have never predicted what exactly would happen in high school, a trend which would frustrate John through his highschool years. John’s parents would be baffled by this development in John's life, and John’s sister would have questioned it if she wasn't at an out of state college. It was not the most characteristic thing for someone who knew they were going to die. But it still happened, against all odds.

In John's freshman Science class, he was given a lab partner to work with for the rest of the year. His name was Anthony. He was rather tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. He constantly bragged about his pure Italian roots, which always made John laugh since his family was also Italian by heritage although they did not emphasize Italian pride like Anthony did. The first day of school, John found that Anthony was terrible at Science, so he had to constantly help Anthony with all the labs. The two of them were required to work together all year, which led to their inevitable friendship, much to John’s initial dismay and Anthony's eternal delight.

This partnership started triggering dreams about Anthony. Predictions about Anthony’s future came at John full force, which freaked John out. Unlike John’s previous dreams about the future, uncertain events in Anthony’s timeline emerged. There were many wedding opportunities John saw, and a possibility of remaining alone forever. But in all of the futures, Anthony seemed to be mourning a previous lover, someone he was destined to be with. One potential previous lover was male and the other was female, although John had no clue who either of them were or even when they would meet Anthony. John wondered a lot about these lovers, who they were, how much they would have meant to Anthony.

All he knew about each lover was that both had a different way of breaking Anthony’s heart. The female, John could tell, was someone who betrayed Anthony while the male loved Anthony, but something happened that prevented the two from continuing their romance. John wished he knew exactly how each person would end up breaking Anthony's heart, but this mystery was for the best. Some aspects of the future were better unseen, especially this part, even if John didn't realize the significance of this prediction yet. John didn't want anything about his powers to accidently slip while being with Anthony, and knowing less about a situation makes it harder to accidently spill information about it.

After a while of being in each other's company, the two of them became great friends. John's tactics of not saying much to Anthony ultimately backfired as Anthony's curiosity grew about the the shy yet intelligent classmate he spent at least an hour with every school day. To Anthony, John was a shell ready to be cracked open, although when taking on the task of becoming John's friend, he didn't realize how thick John's shell actually was. But Anthony persisted and John started to open up a little until the two started to become good friends. As much as John hated to admit it to himself, being near Anthony made him feel almost wanted, which was something he didn't feel often. And it was a feeling that John wanted to feel more of. And like that, the shell finally cracked.


	9. The Rest of the Crew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: just gonna pronoun change some things real quick.

"This is Anthony, although we call them GaLm so we don't confuse me and them."

Anthony was determined to introduce John to all of his friends. John saw them as more people he would end up hurting down the road, but reluctantly went along with Anthony anyway. John enjoyed Anthony's company, which made all the more afraid of how his inevitable death would impact Anthony. John figured he could pretend to be a normal person around Anthony, someone who didn't have weird powers and someone who wasn't touched by death. It's not like Anthony would believe John if he told the truth. And so Anthony had dragged John over to where Anthony's friends normally hang out to introduce John to the group.

"Nice to meet you," John said.

"Pleasure." GaLm nodded while shaking John's hand.

"This here is Tom," Anthony said, gesturing to the ginger of the group. "He's a sophomore this year. He's in GaLm's math class."

"Nice to meet you," John said.

"Do you ever say anything other than 'nice to meet you'?" Tom asked while shaking John's hand.

John's heart stopped. Did he do something wrong? Was there something else he was supposed to say? This was the first time someone had introduced him to his peers, and John didn't want to mess it up. John felt hit with a rush of anxiety as he thought of what he was supposed to do differently. The GaLm person kept their response to one word. Was he supposed to do that too? Was he too formal in his greeting?

"Tom, be nice," Anthony said. "I already told you that John's shy. Don't scare him."

"It's okay Johnny boy," Tom said with a smirk. "We'll kick the shyness out of you in no time."

"Uh..." John was at a loss for words. The anxiety was still lingering in John's system and was determined to not go away. This was going to be harder than John initially thought.

"Moving on," Anthony said, glaring at Tom, who smiled wider in return. "And finally, this is my best friend, Steven. He's part Canadian."

John flinched at the name Steven. It reminded him of kindergarten, when his classmate named Steven left the classroom to go to the bathroom and then was killed. It was John's first verbal prediction of the future, the event that started the alienation between him and his parents. But this Steven looked different from the other Steven, and John had a feeling that this Steven was not going to tragically die like the other one did. This Steven had a future ahead of him, with endless possibilities that made John's head spin.

Looking at Steven closer, John realized that Steven was one of the people Anthony had the potential to marry. John also wondered if Steven was the boy who Anthony would end up mourning. If so, John wondered what event would tragically separate the pair. The idea of it being Steven didn't sit well in John's mind anyway. It must have been his senses from telling the future that gave him this insight. It couldn't possibly be anything else that would make John feel this way. That's what John kept telling himself, anyway. The male lover Anthony would end up having can't be Steven, but there was that chance. That small chance.

"Um, John?" Anthony said, waving his hand in front of John's face. "Steven's been holding his hand out for a while."

John quickly snapped out of his thoughts and reached out to shake Steven's hand, feeling embarrassed that he had spaced out while Anthony was introducing him to his friends. That's already another strike in trying not to act weird. First Tom's comment and now this. So much for a good first impression. This whole meeting people thing was ending up to be a disaster. John should have known talking to other people wouldn't end well.

"Sorry about that," John said, with a million thoughts swarming through his head. "I was just thinking about someone I used to know who had the same name."

"It's fine," the new Steven said with a smile on his face. "Don't worry about it."

Steven seemed nice, but John still felt like Steven was a threat for some inexplicable reason. John kept telling himself that it was because the previous Steven was bringing back bad memories and tried to ignore the part of him that knew that wasn't the case. John decided to ignore the feeling and focus on actually making friends for a change. The last thing John wanted to do was back out and disappoint Anthony, who was looking forward to introducing John to his friends. Maybe if John could redeem himself from his horrid introductions, things wouldn't be so bad.


	10. The Confession

John got along with Anthony’s friends well. John shook away his misgivings in his mind about Steven, ultimately blaming them on the boy who met a tragic fate who happened to share the same name. The second Anthony and Tom also proved to be good company; both were down to earth people who got along with each other well. The group of five hung out often, which gave John something to look forward to in life. He finally understood the feeling of friendship he would have felt in elementary school if he ended up being an ordinary kid, in any type of broad sense.

Over the course of these months, John learned more about Anthony’s failed female lover through his dreams. Her name was Jessica and she was in the same grade as Anthony and John were. If the two would end up together, she would end up cheating on Anthony after a certain amount of time. The male lover was still a mystery though. It was weird how he couldn't see some aspects of the future, yet be completely aware of other happenings. John had never been able to control which aspects of the future he saw, so he chastised himself for thinking that would happen now, even after seeing the future through dreams.

One day, towards the beginning of John’s junior year, Anthony and John were walking around campus during lunch. Steven, Tom, and the other Anthony were studying for some type of test and Anthony and John didn't want to bother them, so the two of them walked together alone, which was nice. Anthony's other friends had become John's friends as well, but he felt closer to Anthony and loved it when the two of them spent time together without anyone else around. John had befriended Anthony first, so the feeling was natural.

“John,” Anthony had said after some time had passed. “I’m actually terrified to tell you this, but, well…”

“What?” John asked. John had no idea what Anthony was going to say, which was something he was not used to. Even without dreams, Anthony's topics of conversations were usually easy to predict, since his topics of conversation were usually the same.

“Well, I’m not sure how to say this,” Anthony says. “Well, over time we’ve been friends, you know, and, well, you’ve been... special to me. At first I couldn't understand it, I couldn't understand why, but now, I do. Your smile, your laugh, your eyes, everything about you. It makes me feel warm inside, and I know I feel this way, I know I do. I guess what I'm trying to say is, well, I’ve been in love with you for a while.”

John blinked, hardly believing what he was hearing. “What?”

“I know that you probably don't like me back and that I’m wasting your time,” Anthony said. “But please hear me out, John. This is something I need to say.”

John's mind was whirring. His brain was beginning to process the meaning behind Anthony's words, a meaning which John never thought to be possible. Anthony looked at his crush with his heart on his sleeve, prepared for the eventual denial of the existence of reciprocated feelings that could only come from one person. But Anthony could not let his emotions eat away at him anymore. Tantalizing thoughts had tormented him for months at this point while he wondered if just maybe, there was a small chance of a happy ending. But Anthony did not realize that an illusion of a happy ending would come to life because of his confession.

“Yeah, yeah,” John sputtered out. Everything felt as if it was a fantasy dream; this was too good to be true. This was just an illusion of fantasies. But at the same time, John knew it was all real. It was as real as his brother hanging from a noose and as real as the old, well, younger Steven with a bullet through his chest. It was a real as his parents’ fear and his loneliness from childhood. But it was also as real as the happiness John had felt when he knew he was no longer alone and friendless. It was a real experience, and John cherished that, knowing this was real and not fantasy for some possibility of a prediction. This was the present.

Anthony took a deep breath. “John, I remember when we first met in our freshmen science class. Our teacher in that class was an absolute bitch, but the one thing I'm thankful to her for is that she paired us together for the entire year. During that time, I’ve gotten to know you, and we ended up becoming really good friends because of that class. And I hope that even after this, we’ll continue to be good friends, because I did not suffer through that awful class to have this friendship flop on me now.” John let out a chuckle at that statement, and that chuckle gave Anthony the confidence to continue.

“And ever since then, we’ve been good friends. We’ve hung out a lot, and every time we’re alone together, I feel something special, something I haven't felt about anyone else. For a while, I wondered what it was, but after a while, I knew what it was. It was the way I love seeing you smile, it was the way your laugh warmed my heart, it was the way your eyes shined when you did something you were proud of, it was the bright light inside you that makes my heart melt. You mean so much to me John, more than you will ever know.”

Anthony started tearing up. He was mentally preparing for this rejection; John was most likely straight, considering that he never batted an eye at any man. But Anthony knew if he didn't let this feelings out now, he’d be stuck with them inside him forever. His chest would continue to tighten every time he heard John's laugh and he would wonder if an opportunity would show itself until it was too late. If he didn't confess, Anthony knew that he would regret it for the rest of his life. He needed to be honest with John, even if this choice ended up hurting him in the end. 

“I know I’m asking something out of the blue,” Anthony said, ultimately prepared for rejection. “And I'm probably going to face the fact that I never really stood a chance, but I have to ask anyway, for my own sanity. John, will you give me the chance to take you on a date with me?”

John felt two different types of feelings in that exact moment. The first was the excitement of Anthony liking him back, as is normal for any teenager. This was the first time someone had ever confessed to having feelings for him, and it was a milestone in his life, heightened by the fact that the person asking him out is someone he had a crush on. The second was the extraordinary feelings he hadn't felt since elementary school. John knew at that moment that he was Anthony’s second choice of people who would break his heart. He also knew why their romance was not meant to last. But if he refused Anthony, he would end up dating Jessica and his heart would experience a different type of heartbreak that John didn't want to see Anthony go through. And it would be unfair to deny Anthony when John returned those feelings. And so John made his decision.

“Yes. Yes I will.”


	11. Revelations

Not everything about the relationship was perfect, of course. Perfect relationships simply do not exist. There were some arguments here and there, but that never drove these two lovers apart. They ended up talking things out and forgiving each other. John just hoped that Anthony would forgive him after all was said and done; it would not be right for Anthony to never learn the truth, after all. In any case, John would not be around when Anthony would find out about John's whole “I can predict the future and predicted my own death” thing, so John decided not to worry about it too much despite his misgivings about the entire lying, or not telling the whole truth, situation.

On a day that neither boy knew would change the way they understood and cared for each other, Anthony and John were on a date eating ice cream on a park bench. The ice cream went by quickly, but both were content sitting on the bench enjoying each other's company. There was no plan in particular for this specific date; the two boys just wanted to enjoy each other's company and escape from their responsibilities for just a short while. They had plenty of time to waste, and so both of them sat on that bench and just talked about school work and video games and everything a teenager would be interested in.

After a while of talking, the two of them started looking at pictures on Anthony's phone, as teenagers do sometimes. Most of them were stupid memes that Anthony has gotten from various sources, but some of them were actual pictures of memories, some with John as well. The two of them laughed at all the crazy stuff Anthony's phone had on it and were generally having a good time. This continued on for a while until the two of them came upon a random picture: a young Anthony side by side with an older boy who was in his teens when the picture was taken.

“Who’s that with you in the picture?” John asked.

Anthony was silent for a while, reliving the memories of the boy in the photo with a heavy heart.

“He’s, well,” Anthony struggled to get the words out. “He was my older brother.”

“Was?” John asked.

“Well…” Anthony was struggling with how to explain what had happened to his older brother to John.

“It's okay,” John said, sensing Anthony's discomfort. “If you don't want to talk about him, it's fine. I'm sorry for prying.”

“No, it's fine,” Anthony said. “I want to talk about him, but…”

“It's okay,” John said. He wrapped his arm around Anthony, pulling himself in for a side hug, resting his head on Anthony's shoulder. “Take your time.”

“He… well…” Anthony sighed. “Even after all of these years, his name is painful to think about, much less say out loud. It just reminds me of what he did, you know?”

John said nothing. With the conversation shifting to a serious topic, John felt his social anxiety rise in his throat, suffocating him. With what Anthony had said so far, there were two possibilities. Either his brother did something so awful that Anthony could no longer consider him a brother or he used to be Anthony's brother but he is no longer alive, the latter being much too familiar to John for his own comfort. John pulled out of the side hug the two had been in and instead held Anthony's hand while looking at him. Perhaps John thought lessening the physical pressure on him from the hug would lessen the mental pressure on him from the topic of conversation.

“My family has always been a bit dysfunctional,” Anthony explained. “My parents loved arguing with each other, even when us kids were around. But we learned to cope with it in our own ways. I guess our parents’ behavior helped us siblings bond. But I guess we weren't close enough to our oldest brother to be able to predict that he would end up committing suicide because of our parents.”

John squeezed Anthony's hand. Part of this move was to comfort Anthony, but it was also to process what Anthony was telling him. John knew what it felt like to lose a brother and see a family strain because of such a tragedy. The word suicide struck a chord in John's heart. It had been the second option after all, the very thing that made John's heart bleed almost every day.

“My brother's death scene was a terrible site,” Anthony said. “Blood dripping out of his wrist, his face submerged in a mixture of water and blood. It was more than a seven year old could bear looking at. At the time, I could only process what he had become, and it didn't hit me that he did it to himself until I had time to get over my shock. But after we discovered what my brother had done, everything got worse. My parents’ sides of the family despise each other, which made the funeral a nightmare. I had hoped that everything would calm down and we could all mourn in peace after everyone left, but...”

Anthony paused a while, taking a deep breath. He looked to make sure John wasn't asleep or something like that. John looked at Anthony with intense eyes and tightened his grip on Anthony's hand. A faint trace of a sad smile could be seen on John's face, and Anthony took it as a sign that he wasn't rambling on to someone who wasn't paying attention. John cared about what Anthony had to say, and so Anthony continued his story, comforted by this conclusion.

“The arguing wouldn't stop,” Anthony explained. “They'd keep on arguing about how much worth my brother's life had, which was horrible. I was scared, because if my mom thought my brother was a waste of space, then what did she think about me? Before my brother's death, none of us kids took any sides in their arguments, but after hearing what our mom was saying about someone we dearly loved, all of us agreed with our dad. And as our relationship with our dad improved, our relationship with our mother became more and more strained. Eventually, my mom decided that she had enough. She left our family, went to live in Florida, and… she never came back.”

At this point, John could feel Anthony's hand shaking. John could also feel the pounding of his own heart at Anthony's words. It was eerie how similar his own experience was to Anthony's. And yet, there was enough of a difference in their experiences for Anthony's experience to be his own. Sure, John had experienced the sadness that Anthony had, but not the hatred over an argument over the value of another person's life.

“I should have told you earlier how fucked up my family situation is,” Anthony confessed. “But I didn't want to alienate you just because of my family. I know it sounds stupid, but…”

“You don't want me to pity you just because of what happened with your family,” John added. It was the first time John had talked to someone who related to how John felt about his brother. “You want people to see you as the person you are now, not by what happened in the past.”

The two sat in silence for a while. John couldn't help but think about what had plagued his childhood: the haunting memories of his brother and the impact it had on his family. Because of his abilities, John's own parents had alienated themselves from him. He had basically been lonely all of his life, with the exception of his sister, until he had met Anthony. Anthony was his shining light in the darkness of everything, and now John realized that Anthony wasn't the happy-go-lucky person John thought he was. He wasn't this stable rock he could rely on all the time. Instead, he was someone he could relate to, someone who can understand him. Throughout it all, they had been relying on each other for support, with two broken pillars holding the burden better than one.

“I'm sorry John,” Anthony finally said. “I shouldn't be bothering you with my problems. It's stupid, anyway.”

“It's not stupid,” John said, thinking about everything he had to deal with. “It's life.”

“But I just feel like I'm bringing you down,” Anthony confessed. “You always know what you're doing, you have your life figured out, and here I am with a whole bunch of problems, a plagued past, and no idea who I am. God, how did we even become friends in the first place? How did someone like me even get friends to begin with?”

John looked at the person who had been his rock through all of high school and felt like a light switch had turned on to expose the ugliness of the world. Even as someone who can see the future, John never saw this coming. John thought that Anthony was this carefree idol that had saved him from the harshness of the world. He was a bright star, and he had been since John's elementary school days. It never occurred to John that Anthony could possibly feel that same way about him, the kid who remembered everything, even his older brother hanging from a noose when he was an infant. All of the bad memories… John couldn't escape them and he knew it. And yet, he was the light in Anthony's eyes despite his darkness?

“Don't say that,” John said, trying to hold back the pain of his past while remembering just how much Anthony meant to him and how he hated seeing him upset and broken like this. “Oh God, please don't say that…” John burst into tears.

Anthony held John in his arms, comforting him, even though he had no idea why John had started crying. “Why not?” Anthony asked. “It's the truth.”

“But you have Steven, Anthony, and Tom supporting you as well,” John said. “You have people who support you, who care for you. Before you, I…”

John thought about all of the years where only his sister had been by his side. He thought of all of the people who had failed to understand him: his parents, his teachers, his psychiatrist, his fellow classmates. When his sister went off to college, John was left alone with no one to be there for him. He had no one who cared about him until Anthony came into his life. Anthony gave him a reason not to stick around in his house only to face his parent’s negativity. Anthony was one of John's only positive aspects in his life.

“John?” Anthony whispered, afraid of what John was going to say next. John never did talk about any friends he had before Anthony, which Anthony hadn't found strange until this very moment. Maybe they betrayed him or something like that?

“My sister's off in college now,” John said. “Before you, she was the only friend I ever had.”

Anthony was speechless. He had this image of John in his head, and now it was shattering right before him as he saw John's tear-stained eyes. But he didn't see a broken man in the sense that John saw himself in. He saw a man who had been through a lot of shit and had survived it all, and no matter how strong he was, he needed someone to support him every once in a while. Anthony's heart ached, not in a good or bad way, but in a different way. He somehow felt more vulnerable than he had when he was pouring out his past to John. Anthony saw John for who he was, not a beacon of hope to cling onto, but a person who would support you if you supported him in return. And then Anthony remembered something John had said, the reason he thought John had friends before him.

“Didn't you say there was another Steven you used to know?” Anthony asked. “What about him?”

“He was…” John said, not knowing exactly how to explain the old Steven to Anthony. “Well, do you remember the school that a robber snuck into when we were in kindergarten? The one that had a gun?”

“I think so,” Anthony replied. “There was one death, if I’m remembering right, with a couple more people injured. It was all over the news back then and my siblings and dad remember it well. Lots of elementary schools boosted their security after that. Why… do you ask?”

“That incident happened at my elementary school,” John admitted. “And, well, the one death was a kid from my class named Steven.”

“Oh.” Anthony had no idea what else to say. Anthony could only imagine how John had felt when Anthony had introduced Steven to him, when he had been lost in thought thinking about this other Steven. “I...had no idea.”

“It kind of sucks, to be honest,” John said. “Thinking about death and how it has impacted my life. I feel like the younger me was a death magnet with all the death that was in my life.”

“A death magnet?” Anthony asked. He was both curious and scared at the same time at this statement. “What gives you that idea?”

“Well, my grandmother died the day I was born,” John said. Seeing Anthony's look of disbelief in either his statement or his death magnet belief, John elaborated. “And not just the day I was born. She got in a car crash and died not long after I was born. When I was an hour old in the hospital, my mom got a call saying her mother-in-law had passed away an hour ago.”

“You’ve given me two people,” Anthony said. “That's too many for a childhood, but that's not a death magnet.”

“There's… one more person in between my grandmother and Steven,” John confessed. John settled on this wording to avoid talking about his death prediction as an experience that he had. “One more person to grieve.”

Anthony looked at John. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Concerning his own brother, John knew that this story would be the hardest to explain without going into John's abilities. With John's grandmother, John didn't mention that he had cried for an hour and then stopped when the phone call came. With old Steven, John simply left out the part where he talked to his teacher about Steven’s death before it happened. But with John's brother, John's abilities were the reason why his body was found in the first place. Would a nanny really check his brother's room by coincidence and find a body there by chance? No. But John owed it to Anthony to open up when he mentioned the third death; John also felt the need to share his experience when Anthony talked about his brother. So John gathered up his courage while trying to think about how to tell the story in a convincing way that wouldn't give away the one secret he wanted to keep from Anthony.

“Yeah,” John said, with the most melancholy smile Anthony had ever seen. “You talked about your brother, so I might as well talk about mine.”

“Did…” Anthony stuttered. “Did your brother… also…?”

“Yeah,” John said, sighing. “He did.”

Anthony was at a loss for words. “I… John, I…”

“You want to say you're sorry, but you know that those words don't take the pain away?” John asked. “Everyone says the word, but it never actually solves anything. It's just 'manners’ to express regret, real or fake, except it always feels fake.”

“I…” Anthony continued to struggle with his words as he pulled John in close to him. If anyone would have asked Anthony about this moment in time later, he would have said that he started hugging John solely to comfort him. Anthony would never admit that he held his boyfriend close to him because he was scared and needed comfort from everything he was learning. But despite this, Anthony's show of affection comforted John as well. The gesture wasn't a “sorry” or a “my condolences.” It was a “I’m here for you,” and that's what John needed.

“That day, the nanny came to take care of me as usual.” John decided to omit the actual beginning of the story, of the night before when he felt like he was suffocating in his brother's arms. “My brother and sister had already gone off to school and so my parents left for work. Well, we thought my brother had left for school, but he was really waiting for his chance to sneak back into the house. You see, our nanny had a tendency to nap while babysitting, so my brother just had to wait for her to fall asleep.”

Anthony just sat in silence, soaking in the details. After a while of silence, John continued his story.

“So my parents went off to work, my sister went to school, and me and my nanny stayed at the house. That left an infant and a nanny who falls asleep easily keeping guard over the house. And like every other time this nanny babysat us, she fell asleep. When she did so, my brother snuck into the house. He went into his room and, well, did the unthinkable. He hung himself in his room and died instantly.”

The next part of the story is the part of the story John didn't want to tell. The part where his powers were involved. But how would this be avoided? This was the question that had been lingering in John’s mind throughout his explanation thus far, but now it was front and center in John's priorities. Of course, John could always tell the story the way it happened, saying that everything was a coincidence. But John was afraid that Anthony would suspect that John was some type of psychic if he did that. And so John said the first thing besides the truth that came into his mind.

“My nanny was trying to get me to stop crying when we heard a crash from my brother's room,” John lied. “She took me to my brother's room and opened the door. Then, I saw my brother's corpse hanging from a noose in my room. The nanny let out a horrifying screech when she saw the body and informed my parents of what had happened. I was just an infant at the time, but... I can still remember the sight of my brother hanging by the noose, dead before anyone could save him. It was… an image that scarred my childhood. An image that never wanted to go away.”

“John…” Anthony was at a loss of words.

“You were older when your brother died,” John said. “I know that, and that he's painful for you to remember. But I still remember my brother too. My psychiatrist from when I was younger said that I was a part of a group of people who had a mental disorder that allowed them to recall any detail from their lives, sometimes involuntary. I remember everything, but there's so much information in there that I sometimes feel like I have no control over my memories. Like, when someone mentions something, I can't help but remember everything that happened concerning that event. If you asked me what I had for lunch on October 8th when I was 10 years old, it was three slices of pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut.”

“You never told me you had a psychiatrist,” Anthony said.

“Well,” John started to explain. “The reason I went to see him was because my mom didn't know why I was taking my brother's death so hard, since I had become obsessed with the idea of death in her opinion. She didn't realize that I remembered how he died. It's not something I bring up casually in conversation.”

“Oh,” Anthony said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“I don't like talking about it because I hated it when people would pity me because of what happened to my family,” John said. “I wanted to be treated like a normal person, but people didn't seem to get that. So I figured I'd start over in highschool, you know?”

“Yeah,” Anthony said. “I guess we both wanted to hide the fact that our lives are pretty messed up.”

The two sat in silence for a long while. Both John and Anthony had a lot to reflect on in this conversation. The two had eerily similar pasts which had caused them pain, and both had taken up the habit of using the other as a means of supporting one another. Both had to process what they had just heard and what they had shared. And both felt a huge burden lifted off their shoulders as they realized that the other did not care how messed up each other's lives were, because they both understood loss.

“My brain hurts,” Anthony said, finally breaking the silence. “Do we have enough money for more ice cream?”

“I don't think so,” John said. “I spent almost all the money I have on me, so unless you have a few bucks…”

“Then I guess I'll just have to enjoy your company instead,” Anthony said. “If you're willing to stick around with me, that is.”

“I’ll be here for you until the day I die, Anthony,” John said. “I promise.”

John felt guilty about the fact that Anthony didn't realize that John knew that he would die soon. But John knew he could not promise Anthony anything more. John knew that the two of them could never have a happy ending. Eventually, there was a great chance of Anthony moving on and finding another to call his own. John had seen that possibility crystal clear. Now John just had to make sure Anthony would be strong enough to carry on by himself before John would leave him behind. Death was already destined to take John at a young age, and John did not want the same to happen to Anthony.


	12. The Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: death. So much death.

It was not until the beginning of senior year of high school that John began experiencing visions of how he was going to die. Like his vision of who Anthony was going to marry, there were many different possibilities on how John’s death would turn out. A car accident was a common vision, as well as drowning. The main thing John noted was that unlike the situation with Anthony, there was no possibility of avoiding death like there was the possibility of no marriage. This was an event set in stone, and even though John already knew this, seeing it all in his dreams was terrifying.

John had known since forever that this was his future, but the visions shook him to the core. He could never have a happy ending with Anthony, and he was being reminded of it every single night. Fate had already predetermined John's demise. With everything coming closer to the end, John was scared. When he was in middle school, death was not as scary as it was now, and not just because four years seemed so far away. Before, he didn't have someone who relied on him except for those who knew the truth, and John worried about how Anthony would feel when everything was said and done. John couldn't bear to think about how devastated Anthony would be.

The most scary visions were of John dying by saving Anthony's life. It didn't matter how the vision played out; it was always terrifying. A drunk driver, a shooter, almost any death imaginable haunted John's dreams at night. Some were so terrifying that John questioned whether they were actual predictions or regular nightmares. John never knew that caring about someone could hurt this much. There were times John wished that he was still lonely so that his friends wouldn't have to go through the pain of losing him, but it was too late for that now. John had done the stupid thing of trying to seek out a bit of happiness before he would have to leave this Earth.

The most terrifying death John experienced in his dreams, and the only dream he ever experienced more than once, was when John sacrificed his life to save Anthony from a suicide attempt. John would run up the stairs to an abandoned building and run up to the roof where Anthony would be preparing to jump. John tried calling out to Anthony, but he never made it in time. Anthony would jump off the building, and John would in desperation reach out for Anthony and swing him onto the building, but the momentum would fling him off of the edge to his death as Anthony would look down, screaming at what he had done. John would wake up after the pain of feeling his guts splatter on the floor and hearing Anthony's howls of pain.

Other than the terrifying dreams, senior year was a pretty normal year for John with school and being with friends and homework. Senior year was pretty normal until the day that John died.


	13. The Prediction Comes True

It was the third quarter of senior year of high school when it happened. John’s birthday had happened two months prior to the event John knew was going to happen. Anthony had noticed John’s change in behavior, the paranoia surrounding John's life, but John denied that he wasn't okay every time Anthony asked. John could never gather the courage to tell Anthony the truth. It was an impossible task. The truth would have to wait until it was too late to do anything about it, not that it could have been avoided if John had shared the truth anyways.

How John ended up dying was a shock to everyone, including John who had not dreamt up this scenario, even though this had never happened with his other visions. He dreamt up something similar to what actually happened, but it was definitely not the same. John had seen many dreams where he had sacrificed his life for Anthony's, but never a dream where he sacrificed his life for someone who wasn't Anthony. There were so many possibilities for the end of his life that he never saw the one that did occur before it happened. When the time came, John thought he would be ready for death. But when John realized it was his time, John wasn't ready for his life to end.

It was after school and Anthony was off doing something with his family; John never inquired into exactly what it was. John found himself with nothing to do, and siting at his house all day was dreary since he and his parents weren't on the best terms. Because of this, John simply decided to go elsewhere. But as John thought about what he wanted to do, he realized that all of his friends were busy. Anthony was with his family, Steven was working on a group project for school with people John didn't know, Tom was working, and GaLm was busy with homework and didn't want to be bothered.

After a while of trying to think of fun things to do by himself, John realized that he didn't have to spend the evening alone. Tom was working. John could just take a stroll into the local GameStop where his good friend Tom worked part time. Even though Tom had already graduated and was into his freshman year of college, he had kept in contact with his old friends from high school, John included. John decided that he’d look through the games and casually harass his friend. You know, the normal thing you do when you visit a GameStop. With his mind now set on a mission, John immediately headed over to the GameStop and entered the store in a cheerful mood, for a moment blissfully unaware of what was going to happen. But that attitude would not last long.

After a while of being in Game Stop, John suddenly got the feeling that something bad was going to happen. But he couldn't just walk back out of the store; Tom had already spotted him from the counter where he worked and the two hadn't chatted with each other yet. Tom waved to him and John waved back and everything was as it should have been. This exchanging of pleasantries in this manner had occurred before this day of course, with everyone in the friend group in the various places where they all worked. It was routine procedure without much thought put into it, but it was the last silent words John would speak before the unspeakable would occur.

Tom was busy with the actual customers, so John decided to look at the various games and wait for the line to vanish before he started talking to Tom. He looked at the various releases, thinking about all the games Anthony would probably buy from here once he got the money. Maybe John would get to play a couple of them with him before his time was up, even though his gaming skills weren't much to be desired. He explored the Mario games and wondered which ones Tom had already bought and played for himself. He looked out for the single player games that would present a challenge to any player who dared test their waters and wondered if GaLm would take up the challenge of that particular game during those times when they would shut themself off from humanity for hours and play all types of games on their own. With every game he saw, he could imagine Steven laughing at how good or bad or ridiculous or interesting or incredibly boring each game was, depending on how the game was made.

As John saw every game he had played, he was instantly reminded of playing that game with his group of friends. He remembered GaLm's seemingly bipolar attitude as they raged in one moment and basked in their triumph in the next. He remembered Steven’s laughter no matter how well he was doing at the game in question. He remembered Tom’s unusual luck and his deflecting the anger of everyone around him when he did well or acted in a way that annoyed everyone around him. And he remembered Anthony's cockiness when he was successful and his complaining when he ended up losing. All was calm as could be, with all these good memories racing through John's head. For a moment in time, everything was peaceful.

After much reminiscing and thinking on John's part, the customers eventually cleared, and John was on his way to talk to Tom when the door burst open. The few people in the store watched as this guy yelled at Tom about some game he had bought not functioning properly. Tom tried to handle the customer, but this guy wasn't listening to what Tom was saying. John wasn't too concerned about the situation until the guy reached into his pocket and John could see a knife. John looked around, and no one seemed to have seen the knife other than him. John quietly approached Tom, making sure the guy didn't realize John knew his intentions, but his act worked too well because Tom didn't see the danger he was in until it was too late for him to react. The guy hopped over the counter and pulled out the knife right when John was within reaching distance of him.

And when the guy landed next to Tom and readied his knife, John received his final prediction of the future right then and there. It was Tom’s life or his. And right then and there, John knew it wasn't going to be Tom’s. He took a deep breath and let the tears roll down his cheeks. 'I’m so sorry, Tom,’ John thought to himself. 'I’m sorry, Steven. I'm sorry, GaLm. I'm sorry, Anthony. I'm sorry, sis.” The burglar raised his knife after he was done with his yelling and John knew it was his time to act. John jumped over the counter and tackled the burglar down to the ground, fully aware of the knife piercing his heart as he took his final breath.

Tom watched in horror as his friend died by saving his life. He stood there shell-shocked as a customer called 911. Surely, this was all a bad dream. Surely, this was all fantasy, a result of Tom staying up too late studying for his college finals and working long hours at the same time. He would wake up in the morning and he’d see John's most recent text and he’d houl in laughter at his friends’ antics. But all of Tom's hopefulness was in vain. This was a tragedy that no one could have possibly predicted. By the time the police and ambulance had showed up, John was already dead, nothing more than a corpse. Everything he was had faded from existence like it never meant anything.

What startled the police was the fact that there were tears on John's face. His death was instant, so the police reasoned that he wasn't crying because of his death. After all, John couldn't have known he was going to die, even though this speculation was false. Although they guessed correctly that the robber was the reason for the tears, they didn't see the nuances behind the entire picture. But the police were not responsible for this error in judgement; it is common knowledge that seeing the future is fantasy, after all. But what the police thought or didn't think doesn't take away from the tragic reality of John's life. The beginning and end of John's life was marked by crying about the reality of death. It was also marked by the curse of prophecy, with one prediction with unavoidable consequences.

John was eighteen years old when he died, just like he had predicted all those years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rip Smarty.


	14. The Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the guest who left kudos on this work and reminded me to upload the rest of this story to Ao3. Oh my god.

Anthony and John’s sister took John’s death the hardest. John’s sister knew it was going to happen while she was away, but what had compounded her grief was Anthony. She could not fathom why John would choose to enter a relationship with someone until she saw John’s notebook. Flipping through the pages, she understood why John did not want her looking through it. It predicted many things that startled her, including her preferred college turning her down. She could not possibly imagine the burden John had put on his shoulders by keeping everything to himself. His timeline was so much more complete than she could have ever imagined, with everything explained in vivid detail over years of dreams and predictions.

John's parents were numb. This was their second child who had died before going off to college. They had never quite believed John when he said he would die at age eighteen until it actually happened, mainly because they didn't want it to happen. They had long convinced themselves that John was traumatized by his own brother’s death despite the evidence pointing towards John knowing the future. All of the money that John’s parents had been saving up for John’s college now went to pay for the remainder of his sister's college expenses. There was nothing else John's parents could bear to spend the money on. Their youngest child who they had high hopes for despite their fear of him was now gone, and now only their middle child could help them fulfill their long lasting dream of becoming proud grandparents.

The funeral itself was a simple ceremony without much religion attached to it; it would have only been improper to plan a religious ceremony for someone whose controversial powers resembled witchcraft in the eyes of many people. The only speakers during the funeral were the people hired to run the funeral and John’s parents. Afterwards, there was a reception where everyone could meet up and talk to each other about John. There was a reporter on site gathering information on an article about John, but everyone else there was there to mourn John’s death. John’s sister looked through the guests until she found the one person she wanted to talk to.

“Hey,” John’s sister said. “Anthony, was it?”

“Yeah,” Anthony said. “Who are you?”

John’s sister introduced herself and talked with Anthony about John. After a while of talking, it became clear that Anthony had no idea about John’s future telling ability or his death prediction. She felt relieved that John had left an explanation for Anthony about himself and what the book contained on the first page, but she was still nervous about giving Anthony the book. She was afraid of how Anthony was going to react to John knowing his fate from the start, but she knew that Anthony would realize why John did what he did. Even if John knew what would happen, he deserved happiness too, and not being with Anthony wouldn't minimize the pain of a high school relationship.

Anthony and John’s sister never saw each other again after the funeral. The memories would be too painful for either of them, and there was nothing else for the two of them to discuss. John’s sister went back to college and moved far away from her parents, hoping to escape the miseries of her childhood. She had never wanted kids, but when her parents ended up becoming upset over this, she and her husband decided to adopt as a compromise, since one of the main reasons she didn't want children was the fear of the pain of giving birth to a child. Anthony finished high school while coping with his heartache with the support of his friends and went to a college in California along with Steven. The book John’s sister gave Anthony gave him predictions that ended up helping him out, and some that were creepy as well. Anthony graduated successfully and pursued his life, never forgetting about John, but he eventually did find another love. And as for who Anthony ended up marrying? Well, that's a story of its own.


	15. One Last Message

_Dear Anthony,_

_I can't imagine how you're feeling right now. And I can't say anything except how sorry I am for breaking your heart. I know what you've been through, and I don't want this to be the thing that finally pushes you over the edge. I know how much you've relied on me, and I know you can't rely on me anymore, but please, stay strong for me. Keep staying strong, for the both of us._

_The truth is, I haven't told you the real reason my parents shunned me during my childhood, leaving me alone. I never told you that my parents thought I was a freak, and that they still do. All the fake acts they put up around everyone, pretending everything is normal. After a while, it turns your heart to ice until the ice thaws away and you can't be strong anymore. As far as our broken family goes, you've only seen the starting layer, the one where my brother ended his life. You've never seen the part I contributed to our family's problems, the part I've been hiding from you._

_Anthony, you're the reason I found happiness on my life. After my sister went off to college, I had no one. And when we were paired up in that science class, at first I wanted nothing to do with anyone, but you insisted on getting to know me. I know I've said this to you already, but I don't know if you know how much that impacted my life. You broke down the walls I had been building up all of my life. You made me feel whole and like I belonged in a world of judgmental eyes where one dark secret had isolated me for so long. The one secret that I swore I'd hide from this new life of friends, from you. The secret that I can't hide from you anymore._

_Everything about my secret is in this book I present to you. A collection of stories and imagines I've recorded since middle school from dreams I've had every night. You'll soon find that they were never ordinary dreams, and they are something so special, yet they bear the ugly truth that has borne hated for all of my life. I'm sorry for being so vague, but I just can't bring myself to say what I've been trying to tell you outright. You'll just have to discover it all for yourself._

_Yours truly,_

_John Page_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading Chapter 1! This comment is going to appear at the end of the final part of this story and is generally going to make no sense because of how Ao3 works! Anyways, hope you liked the start of this story. Chapter 2 will be out soon guys, I promise! :D


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